2014 Chablis Les Vaillons 1er Cru

“The challenge in 2015 was to find the balance between acidity and alcohol,” said estate manager Matthieu Mangenot. “We thought 2015 would be like 2003 but the wines do not show surmaturité,” he added. “They’re solid and opulent but not out of whack; 2015 was a hot year that produced fruity wines.” Mangenot credited well-timed rains for keeping the foliage more or less green all year and noted that the estate barely needed to use its sorting table for the second consecutive year. Domaine Long –Dépaquit started harvesting on September 3, with the effects of the hail worst in their Blanchots vines. Grape sugars were between 12.3% and 12.6%, and the wines were lightly chaptalized to 12.8% to 13%. The malolactic fermentations were finished before Christmas and acidity levels range between 3.6 and 3.8 grams per liter.

Mangenot now feels that 2014 “has all the ingredients to be a great vintage: aromatic complexity, opulence, great acidity, lovely precision.” The wines benefitted from longer élevage, taking on more volume, he added. Mangenot believes that the 2014s will be as long-lived as the 1996s. “Two thousand ten was very good, but 2014 is a bit less ripe and better balanced. The 2014s are for drinking after the 2015s, which are joyous wines.” He recommended holding the 2014 premier crus for seven to ten years and the grand crus for longer.

In the estate’s new cuverie, all of the crus are vinified with whole clusters and Mangenot is able to press more carefully. “Being able to work with much finer lees makes a bit difference in the wines,” he told me.

Long-Dépaquit’s new cuverie , with its stainless steel tanks sized to its various plots of vines, now allows the winemaking team to press whole clusters and begin with cleaner juice, an improvement over the heavier bourbes (the gross lees) and pieces of fruit and stems that resulted from the old destemmer. Estate manager Matthieu Mangenot described 2014 as a “soft growing season in which a cool July and August resulted in less consumption of acidity. No sorting of the grapes was necessary but it was difficult to press them owing to the hard skins." Potential alcohol levels were in the low 12% range and most of the wines were chaptalized about half a degree. Acidity levels were sound but there was a lot of tartaric precipitation and so the finished wines are not normally tart. Yields were about 53 hectoliters per hectare in the estate’s village parcels, 50 in its premier crus and just 30 in the grand crus. At the time of my visit, the crus were aging partly in oak and partly in cuves.

Mangenot described 2013 as a very rich vintage, with 12.5% natural alcohol, thanks to very long maturation of the vines. The team started picking on October 1 and finished in just six or seven days, vs. a normal ten.